Aviation musical fails to take off

Wednesday 25 July 2007 23:00 BST

In three short years, this superb Southwark theatre/restaurant complex has become a supplier of quality musicals to the West End. So hopes were sky-high for this new show. Disappointingly, Take Flight remains resolutely earthbound.

The problem is John Weidman's book, which effortfully binds plot strands about aviation pioneers the Wright brothers, Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart. The timelines are confusing so it's hard to follow who's flown where and when.

The expectation was that director Sam Buntrock and designer David Farley, who made Sunday in the Park with George such a visual delight, would revel in the chance to play with planes. But the design scheme amounts to little more than a step ladder, an Airfix model and the occasional variation in lighting.

The well-drilled cast work hard at songs by David Shire and Richard Maltby Jr but they are overlong and under-memorable. The music also reinforces the impression that Lindbergh is bland and the Wrights quirky but static, leaving Earhart (Sally Ann Triplett) assuming far too much responsibility for the forward thrust of the evening.

Sam Kenyon and Elliot Levey provide some welcome comic relief as the delightfully nerdyWrights. Physics set to music is an unlikely idea but here it works. Overall, however, this is one carbon footprint we could well afford not to leave.